Soft Gaze our new Picaro Press book has just been released. Thank you to Brenda Eldridge and Stephen Matthews at Ginninderra Press.. This is our second collaborative effort and we found our poetry blended very well to create this beautiful collection.
We are proud of the cover we have titled ‘still and still moving‘ a photograph taken by our daughter, Jessica. As she walked on the beach , she observed the sand designs on the ebbing tide. One needs attention and the art of soft gazing to see this phenomena and once seen of course it is never unseen. One can never walk again on the beach and not watch for the intricate designs the sand and water makes at their edge. Thanks Jessica.
The dedication reads:
For our children and their partners –
the role models for our grandchildren.
Michael’s poem gives the title to the collection
Soft Gaze
by Michael Keating
On this rim of the Pacific
an alfresco café fills and empties
swirls with chatter and laughter.
I allow my thoughts to drift.
On the rumpled velvet water
a canoeist eases into view
captures centre stage
then fades out of sight.
Folded against a cloud-gripped sky
the ocean is polished, gunmetal grey.
Pale pockets quilt the surface
where the sun probes to burn through.
The horizon arcs –
a tightrope where a coal bulker crosses.
A sharp scurry of seagulls
reframes my attention.
